


The Witches' Hammer

by LetheAfterDark (LetheSomething)



Series: Popcorn Porn: Folk Tales [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Crisis of Faith, F/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sentimental, Slow Burn, mildly paced burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:42:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8801263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetheSomething/pseuds/LetheAfterDark
Summary: In which the witch hunter Midorima ends up being patient to the village witch. Much to his own chagrin.A rather angsty romance short, with some very mild nsfw.Female reader





	

The man sitting in your bed pushed his spectacles further up his nose and pouted.   
“You realize who I am, of course,” he said, long fingers delicately flattening a crease in the pelts keeping his legs warm.  
“Father Midorima, witch hunter”, you answered without looking up from your cauldron. “The villagers told me when they brought you in.”  
You dipped the back of a spoon into the cast iron pot, where a hare stew was coming together nicely. The neighbours had dropped off the animal together with your latest patient.  
It was a gift of sorts, an unspoken ‘sorry about this’.  
“And you are miss __”, Midorima continued, pointedly looking at his hands. He thought he was being subtle, but you could definitely feel him glance at you as you ran a finger over the spoon and licked it. “I’m the village witch. Yes.”  
This stew needed something extra, you decided. You got up to grab some thyme.  
“Which makes me being here rather… illogical,” he spoke to your back.  
“Well, you went and fell off your high horse, and I’m the only one around here who can mend broken bones”, you said cheerfully, adding a generous pinch of the herb to your pot.

This was how it started.   
The witch hunter Midorima Shintarou had broken his leg not far from your village and the locals, in all their wisdom, had brought him to you.  
It was what they always did when people got hurt.  
Especially since none of them were eager to put him up.  
So once said leg was splinted, he sat in your hut, being generally uncomfortable but pointedly polite. 

“Why do you do this?” he asked one evening as you were stoking the hearth.   
“It's my job,” you said, glancing over your shoulder.  
He pushed his glasses further up his nose. “Do you not fear me?”  
“Should I?” You raised an eyebrow at him.  
“We are... enemies. If I were to meet you under different circumstances, you would-”  
He stopped when you turned around to look at him from your comfy chair by the fire.  
“You'd never catch sight of me 'under different circumstances', though,” you said calmly.  
He blinked in confusion.  
“The only reason we're talking, is because you are injured”, you explained, “if you came by to capture me, I wouldn't be here.”  
“You are severely underestimating my abilities if you think I cannot arrest a lone village witch”, he mumbled, lips forming a thin line as he looked at the wall.

You were getting on his nerves again.   
It was something you'd started doing out of spite, really, and also because it was a lot of fun. The man carried a mask of civility at all times and you loved picking at the little cracks in his veneer until they became wide enough to see through. You were utterly intrigued by what was underneath.  
Midorima, of course, had a massive stick up his ass, but you'd learned that it was mostly because he tried to do Right, even though that meant doing all the Wrong things. And you had started to suspect that part of him knew. He was not a stupid man, but he cared about decorum, about precision and stability. If he didn't say the correct prayers at the right time, his whole day was ruined. And if he didn't act in a way he considered proper, the whole carefully constructed façade that was his image would crash to the ground.  
So obviously you tried to swipe at the supports.  
Flustered witch hunters, you'd found, were your favourite type of witch hunter.

And now he sat, awkwardly staring at the wall, with your words grating at his sensibilities.   
The little blush on his cheeks was kinda cute, and you leaned back and watched him knit his eyebrows together, attempting to regain his composure.  
“Has no one ever told you real witches don’t burn?” you said softly.  
He gave you a shocked, almost hurt expression.  
“I beg your pardon?”  
“Those caught by your organization tend to be the little old biddies and the ones that are a bit wonky in the head”, you said, “The unlucky, the stupid, the defenceless and the overly trusting. It’s sad, really.”  
“That is what due process is for”, Midorima shot back. “If they are innocent, God will prove them to be.”  
“They'll have drowned by then”, you muttered.  
“We can only lay out our plans for providence as best as flawed creatures can”, he said, unconsciously raising his voice, “Man proposes and God disposes.”  
It sounded rehearsed. He noticed it, too. With a resigned sigh, he grabbed his prayer book from the small table by his bed and opened it, avoiding your gaze for the rest of the evening.  
You sat and watched him smooth out the creases in his self-image, fill in the cracks and coat the whole thing with fresh varnish.

“Do you honestly believe you could evade the Holy Law?“ he asked the next day.   
He peered at you over his glasses while you sat at the table, wrapping dry grass into rope.  
“I know this forest like the back of my hand, father Midorima. It's not that hard to disappear”, you answered. “I don't even need that much of a head start.”  
“You think you will have that?”  
“That's where I would need to be lucky, I suppose.”  
He silently watched you pull a few more strands out of the pile of dead grass on the table, and weave it into the cord in your lap.  
“You don't assume the people in the village will save you”, he said.  
It wasn't a question, but you nodded anyway. “Can't really expect them to. The villagers are scared shitless of the likes of you. For all they know you’re going to torture their mothers and rape their daughters.”  
“What! I’d never-“  
You smiled coldly at him. “It’s what your predecessor did.”  
He was blushing again, irritatedly fiddling with his fingers.  
“Father Nash is a disgrace upon the name of the Cloth, nanodayo” he mumbled.  
You nodded and pulled a knot tight on your rope. “And I’m the one who ran him out of town.”  
He blinked at you.  
“We're not that different, you and I”, you continued, trying the feel of the cord in your palm, “people fear what they don't understand. Certainly if it appears to be powerful. In some cases they're quite right.”  
You raised an eyebrow at him and Midorima dutifully looked away, pushing up his glasses. You couldn't help but smile.  
“So don’t you go worrying about me, my good father”, you said, getting back to work. “Why don't you focus on your leg, so we can both get on with this. The sooner you’re healed and out of my house, the better.”

You didn't push him further for the next week. You really did want him to get better, after all. And while you were busy with preparations for winter, it seemed easier to steer clear of difficult conversation. So you talked of trivial matters: of nature, of the animals in the forest.   
“I heard wolves howl last night”, he said, gritting his teeth in pain while you wrapped his leg. The splint was gone, but his leg still needed structure. It involved very tight bandages.  
“Yeah, they move closer when it gets cold”, you said.  
“How close?”  
You looked up into his piercing green eyes. He'd been intently watching you work, gaze burning into your shoulder as you unwrapped, cleaned, coated and wrapped again. And now he was all-out staring at you and you had no idea what to make of it.  
“Don't worry, we have an agreement”, you grinned at him. “They don't bother me, and I don't bother them.”  
“Because this is 'your' forest”, he said. You wondered if there was sarcasm there, but if it were, it was hardly perceptible.  
“Something like that”, you said.  
Finishing up the bandages, you appraised your work.  
“Wiggle your toes for me?” you asked. He silently obliged.  
“All done!” you smiled. “You're getting there, father Midorima.”  
You put down his leg and pulled the sheets around him when he suddenly flashed red and tried to slap you away.  
So that's what this was about.  
“Would you like some help with that, too?” you smirked, nodding at the bulge under the sheets before taking your tools and getting up.  
It was a joke, you told yourself, but maybe slightly more than that.  
You were tugging at his cracks again, eager to get at what was underneath. You really couldn't help yourself, the flashes of it that you'd seen glowed so bright you couldn't keep your eyes off them.

He was unamused.  
“Please don’t embarrass me like that, nanodayo.”  
He was grumbling under blushing cheeks. “I realize you must hate me, but this humiliation is uncalled for.”  
You shrugged and opened the small cabinet by the bed to put away your supplies.  
“I like you just fine”, you said.  
Midorima sat quietly behind you, seemingly deep in thought.  
“Then please respect that I am a man of the Cloth”, he said when you turned around to face him again. “I cannot engage in… desires of the flesh, joke or otherwise.”  
“Never stopped your predece-“  
“I am NOT father Nash!” He angrily pushed up his glasses while you grinned at him.  
You really were getting fond of the cracks in his veneer.  
“I know that,” you said mildly, “Fairly sure I wouldn’t have been helping his sorry ass if he fell into a ditch and broke his head.”  
“You told me it was your job”, Midorima frowned.  
“It’s my job to give people a chance. To show me they’re good people.”  
“And you consider me good people,” he muttered, mostly to himself.  
“Most people are, father Midorima. They can be scared, or selfish, or have a head full of really stupid ideas”, you glanced at him while he pointedly looked at his hands, “but that doesn’t make them bad people.”  
He was silent for a while, and you caught yourself staring at the way the fire made the ends of his hair light up. You quickly turned around to go make some tea.  
“I am a weak man”, he said as you walked toward the kitchen.  
It was a whisper, nothing more. It may not have even been meant for you.  
You decided to drop it.

Midorima made good progress in the next few days. As his leg grew stronger and his other wounds healed, you encouraged him to stand up more. He would slowly shuffle through the hut and put firewood on the hearth while you stacked jars of jam and pickled vegetables in the back of the pantry.  
It became apparent, now that he was no longer hiding behind a book all day, that his eyes flicked to you more often than not. And when your gaze met his, twinkling brightly into those green eyes, he'd simply look away, suddenly very interested in the woods outside your window.  
If he kept this up, there would be no varnish left on that façade of his. 

You watched the whole thing crumble, briefly, when he decided to help you with dishes one evening.  
He brought the plates over from the table and stumbled into you.  
If it had been any other man, you'd call foul play, but this was Midorima, so it really was an accident, and that somehow made it worse.  
Turning around to catch him you found yourself close, very close, to his heated face, lips a mere heartbeat from each other.  
And he didn't move away.  
He breathed, twice. In, out, in, out, while he stared at you, shocked and flushed.  
You opened your mouth to speak and he sprang back, regaining his balance on the counter.  
He pushed up his glasses.  
“My apologies”, he croaked, before shuffling back to the bed and opening his prayer book.  
He did not speak to you again that evening, nor the next two days.  
He dared not even look at you.

So this was how it would be.   
You already knew which part of the story you were to play. The witch leading the righteous to temptation. Undoubtedly an offence punishable by death, but so was your very existence, to them.  
If that was your role, you'd play it to your utmost abilities.  
You knew what was underneath those robes. You'd seen this man in all his bruised glory when they brought him in, delirious and half conscious. And you weren't afraid to admit that you liked the thought of desire coursing beneath that pale skin of his.  
If he was going to fall from grace, you'd be there to catch him.

It happened faster than you expected, one evening as you sat in your comfy chair by the fire, darning a sock.   
“Miss __,” he said. It was a quiet plea, perhaps one he didn’t want you to hear, but your hut was small and the fire was dying, barely making a sound now.  
“Yes?”  
“I’m… I'm afraid I haven't been the best company and I would like to apologize”, he said.  
You looked up from your handiwork to find him sweating, face heated as he looked for the right words to say. A biting reply tried to make its way up your throat but you decided in favour of silence, calmly watching while he stuttered on.  
“I have been... fighting some inner demons, if you will. I find myself struggling with your presence.”  
You raised an eyebrow.  
“I mean, you’re very…”  
He was visibly distressed now. You could see him break into splinters before you, trying so hard to balance what he wanted with what he felt he needed to do. It was difficult, and it showed in the way he struggled to find words, form sentences, push anything past the cracks in his veneer.  
“I am drawn to you”, he finally said, “enough that it clouds my mind.”  
“I can assure you I'm not using a spell”, you said, and he pushed up his glasses.  
“That much is clear, nanodayo”, he groaned, “my desire for you is of a more... human nature.”  
He glanced up for a moment, as if to check that you were still there, still listening, before returning to study his fingers.  
“I would like – I – I think I want… and of course there’s no obligation on your part, I would not hold this against you at all, I feel I'm imposing quite a bit considering the circumstances, but…”

So this is how it would be.   
You slowly put away the sock and rose, moving to sit on the bed next to him.  
He was looking anywhere but at you again and you smiled softly, touching his chin with your index finger to gently guide his face to you.  
When he finally saw you, his brows knitted together, splinters of his façade falling faster than he could hold them.  
“Are you sure you want to go there,” you whispered, running a hand through his hair.  
Long lashes fluttered at the touch, and he breathed deeply through his nose.  
“I fear,” he said, halting to breathe, “that I am a very weak man.”  
And with that he leaned in, thin lips just barely brushing yours before you pulled him closer.

Midorima was not a man who had never kissed before. Of that much you were certain.   
You felt it in the way he held you, how his mouth was commanding, needy and giving at the same time.  
“May I?” he asked, running long fingers over the buttons of your bodice. A voice in the back of your head was telling you that really, this was not the man you should be sleeping with, but it was hard to listen to it when every hair on your body stood on end.  
So you nodded, watching mutely as he undressed you.  
He was delicate, fingers dancing over your skin like you were made of fine china.  
His lips worshipped you as if you were the holy virgin, explored you like untouched snow.  
You were none of these things, but for just one night you didn’t mind feeling that pure, that wanted.  
He moved down your body, stopping to ask before removing each of your garments and you wondered what more you could give him. Your heart, your soul, probably your life. With every halted breath he blew onto your skin, you could feel yourself sink a little deeper into the aching depths.  
When he reached your cunt, he seemed to hesitate briefly.  
Two green eyes looked up imploringly over his glasses.  
“I would like to taste you, if I may”, he said.  
You spread your legs in response. Anything you could give him.  
This, you realized, was uncharted territory.  
You saw it in the way he sat there, looking at you in awe, breathing in your scent without moving, until you became self-conscious and started blushing.  
He noticed.  
“You are very beautiful”, he said, and traced his fingers down the inside of your thigh. 

Midorima was out of his depth, but at least he was methodical about it.   
He moved his fingers slowly, carefully brushing different places and checking up to you every time until he knew what would make you shudder or moan.  
He was patient and calm, not like any man you’d ever been with. It almost hurt that he would be the one to treat you like some precious flower, slowly adding wood to the fire until you were burning up.  
With two fingers he spread your lips, humming as he took in the view. The sudden exposure made you shiver but he was undeterred, using the index of his other hand to explore you ever so gently.  
The anticipation made you squirm all the more.  
When he reached your clit, you let out a cry and threw your head back into the pillow.  
He stopped, shocked, blinking at you until you sat back up.  
“Please keep doing that”, you whimpered, and he nodded.  
With that, he brought his mouth closer and slid his tongue up your slit. It was soft and cool to the touch, and it only deepened the gnawing need in your gut.  
You could feel him test you again, switching between tight little circles and small suckling movements, waiting for your reaction.  
It was effective, as he kept building you up, stoking the fire, pulling you as taut as you could get.  
“Mi- dorima”, you barely managed to speak his name and two piercing green eyes looked up at you.  
There was, quite possibly, a smirk and he slid two long fingers inside of you, immediately setting off sparks.  
“Mi- ahhhh.” With a few simple movements, the rope he'd pulled so tight, the nerves he'd stretched across your skin like the strings of a bow, snapped and unravelled.  
You fell back on the bed and cried out, not caring in the least how much noise you were making as you felt yourself overflowing like a river in spring. His movements slowed, growing even gentler while he waited for you to stop squirming. Then he rose and placed a single kiss on your hip, one on your stomach and finally, one on your lips.  
He tasted of salt and desire.  
“Are you alright?” he asked, voice soft with genuine concern.  
You nodded, greedily kissing him again while your hands found their way under his shirt, eager to return the favour. His face flushed while your fingers brushed his skin, and there was a faint gasp when you moved down.

He leaned back while your lips traced heat down his neck. When you carefully opened his shirt to kiss his chest, he pushed a fist in front of his mouth and closed his eyes, breathing heavily through his nose. His other hand rubbed your back while you made your way down, nuzzling his skin to feel the desire coursing underneath.   
He was rock hard, almost painfully so, and the lightest touch made him twitch. So you skimmed the sides of his cock gently with the back of your hand, getting him used to the feeling, before lightly moving to stroke him.  
He whimpered a little, hand brushing through your hair, until you suddenly felt him shudder and freeze.  
You looked up to see that his eyes were still closed, face a mask of suffering. It worried you.  
“You ok?” you whispered.  
He shook his head.  
“Please, no more. I cannot…” he croaked and you slowly moved away your hand.  
“I apologize”, he murmured. “I- I should not... I mustn't.”  
He looked up to meet your eyes, and for a moment you saw the full extent of what was behind the façade. It was heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. It shone bright like a diamond, burnt hot like a flame and it was filled with pain and doubt.  
You frowned.  
The next moment he looked away, and you could feel the walls of his resolve slamming down.  
“Would you like me to stop?” you asked.  
He nodded, fist never leaving his mouth.  
You shrank back while he sat there, not moving and definitely not looking at you.

“I’ll go get some more fire wood,” you said, slipping out of bed and putting clothes over your damp skin. You walked outside and stood in the crisp fall air until you felt yourself cool down.   
Damn, this actually hurt. There was a tight knot in your chest that signalled you'd already gone too far, fallen too deep to get out of this unscathed.  
You headed to your rain barrel and dunked your head in, face first. The sting of cold water managed to wake you from your daze a little, but you lingered in your yard, feeding the chickens and straightening tools until you figured he'd gotten enough time to pick up the pieces of himself. When you finally went inside, he lay in bed with his back to you. You sat in your comfy chair by the fire, pulled a blanket over yourself and fell asleep. 

The next morning you woke up to Midorima brewing tea in your little kitchen.  
He'd made the bed, you saw, and packed up his books.  
You stretched and shuffled toward the counter.  
“Hey”, you said, and he held out a cup for you.  
“Miss __.”  
You took the tea and closed your eyes, breathing in the fragrant heat before taking a sip.  
“I fear I must apologize again”, Midorima said. It was his proper voice. The one that sounded distant and rehearsed, the one that sat behind several layers of varnish.  
“I have treated you unfairly. It should not have come to this. My only excuse is that I have never faced desire of that... magnitude. But it is still my fault for leading you this far, and I regret behaving in such a manner toward you. I fear this is a test of my faith and if I don’t…”  
He pushed up his glasses and you smiled.  
The man was easy enough to read once he got agitated.  
So you nodded and walked to your bedside cabinet, pulling open a drawer.  
“Here,” you said and you dropped a small green velvet bag in his hand. “Put the contents on your wound until you reach a proper hospital. If you walk the road in front of my house, you’ll make it to the Henley’s and they have your horse.”  
He looked at you incredulously.  
“Just like that?” he said.  
“Did you want me to cry?”  
“No, of course not, I…”  
“You were never meant to stay, Shintarou,” you said gently.  
He closed his fingers around the bag and stood there for a second. Then he put down the teapot, grabbed his pack and made for the door.  
“Thank you,” he said, turning back, “truly. You are an… interesting woman, and I wish we could have met under different circumstances.”  
And he was gone.

That night you went down to the village pub and got royally, uncharacteristically drunk.  
To celebrate, the villagers assumed.

 

Winter came and went.   
You were busy planting seedlings in your garden when one of the villager boys ran up the road.  
“Miss! Miss!”  
You got up and wiped your hands.  
“Did something happen?” you said, immediately making a mental tally of all the sick and old people in the village, wondering which one was going to croak right before the good days of spring started.  
“I was sent to give you this, miss!” the boy huffed, handing you a small package before bending double to gather his breath.  
Frowning, you took it inside and placed it on your kitchen table before walking back out with two walnut-and-honey candy bars you'd made in the quieter months.  
“Share with your sister, child,” you said when he looked up at you with big eyes. “I’ll know if you don't.”  
He nodded quickly and ran back off again.  
Inside your kitchen, you opened the package to find a small green velvet pouch. You blinked. Twice.  
Then you got up and grabbed a large bag, filling it with what few possessions were precious to you.

  
They came that very evening. Soldiers on horseback, and two witch hunters leading them to your hut. You watched from the woods as the soldiers trampled your seedlings and attempted to set fire to your house. They failed miserably, moss so thick and damp covering the old place that it was nearly impenetrable.  
“Trash it,” one of the witch hunters ordered, while father Midorima stood at the edge of the forest like a statue hewn from the living wood, peering mournfully into the trees.  
“We should have brought the dogs,” his colleague said as he walked up to him, “the bitch can’t have gone far and we could send a search party in.”  
“I doubt that is necessary,” Midorima replied, pressing his glasses up his nose. “There are wolves in these woods. I fear her soul can no longer be saved.”  
“Really?” the other man said, “Wolves? ” He looked around fearfully, backing away. When Midorima didn't move, he retreated to the company of the soldiers and ordered them to embark.  
The witch hunter named Midorima stared into the woods, and for a second you thought your eyes met.  
He made a cross and nodded, briefly.  
You retreated deeper into the forest.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Part two of KnB characters in Folk Tales. This started as kind of a silly porn plot, and then turned ANGST. It made sense at the time.


End file.
